Gentling his hand, the sound of the lyre grows softer and softer; it's more a thing to do than earnest pursuit of music. It certainly hasn't lent any power to his words, but perhaps that isn't a fault of this place at all. He had asked, year after year, for the magic of the Koronokto to make them feel his pain. This was the first year that wish had become quite so literal, and in its fulfillment, perhaps the bardic gift would always be gone.

Cael wets a corner of his mouth, scrapes the tip of his tongue on his teeth. "That's fine; I'm a patient man."

The teetering of his bow over the strings plucked a few last notes to the air, until he has it tucked akimbo. "Forgive me, I know not enough of this Hell to know what it is not." Which makes the man an unlikely denizen of Vermidis, and thus, perhaps likelier to roll across his sheets without dying. "Death releases magic, so far as I've always known. I never imagined it would stay in the grasp of the dead."